The Existential Relief of Having Children

https://thelivingfossils.substack.com/p/the-existential-relief-of-having

by jseliger • 2 years ago

68 103 2 years ago

thelivingfossils.substack.com

chaps• 2 years ago

  Let’s switch tracks for a second. Have you ever noticed how at a job, not having enough work produces a different (and usually worse) state of misery than having too much?

Join a non-profit and a lot of these problems go away :)

Terr_• 2 years ago

In my youth, I found summer vacation distressingly undirected (though part of that was living overseas with a language barrier) and even benign periods of unemployment have had a similar impression.

oven9342• 2 years ago

in order to arouse crying and tears, concentrate your attention in yourself.

J. Cortázar

monero-xmr• 2 years ago

My aunt’s deathbed regret at 61 from cancer - “I wish I had kids.”

If you aren’t mentally deranged or have a genetic disease you may pass on, it really is a mistake to skip having kids. Everyone I know with kids in their 40s and 50s is content. Everyone without are getting ever more extreme hobbies, like creating huge professional-esque home breweries or starting to BASE jump.

georgebcrawford2• 2 years ago

If you aren’t mentally deranged or have a genetic disease you may pass on, it really is a mistake to skip having kids.

Jog on mate. There's a difference between "you won't regret them" and "it really is a mistake to skip having kids."

I know loads of older people without kids. Would their lives have had more meaning and fulfillment if they had them? Maybe, probably. But they are happy and content, living lives of meaning. As for your hobbies comment...seriously?

yawpitch2• 2 years ago

Not everyone who “skips” having kids is doing so because of mental derangement (not usually genetic), a genetic disease (be careful with eugenics, it tends to bite), or any kind of mistake. Most people I know in their 40s and 50s who don’t have kids desperately wanted them but for one reason or another couldn’t have them, while most of those who actually chose not to had good, well-reasoned motivations and made the correct choice for them.

Spend enough years struggling to find a decent partner and then IFF you eventually do even more years struggling through the inhumane process that is IVF and you’ll also have your aunt’s regret, but not have made any mistakes along the way.

in_a_society• 2 years ago

I suspect that parent comment is not referring to the same kinds of people you are. I can relate because I know several people who flippantly dismissed family formation as not for them and now that it's too late they admit it consumes them like a fire on a daily basis.

Jensson• 2 years ago

Spend enough years struggling to find a decent partner

Even worse, what do people do who aren't decent partners themselves? I always wondered how people can think that children are for everyone, but also think that it is hard to find a partner that can help you with the kids. If there are so many people out there who would be horrible parents then maybe those people are better off not being parents, why try to convince them to be one?

d6e• 2 years ago

Those hobbies sound pretty cool

CalRobert2• 2 years ago

It's hard to get counter examples because there is a strong taboo against admitting you regret having kids, _especially_ for moms.

I promise you many parents regret it.

anonzzzies9• 2 years ago

Yep. Also moms, including mine and my grandma openly say they wouldn’t do it at if there was a do over. They all love their kids but they regret having so little time for themselves in the healthiest part of their lives.

otherme1232• 2 years ago

If you talk with them in a non judgemental way, they usually cave in and confess that sometimes they wish a childless life. Of course, the moment you get judgemental, call them bad mothers, or try to "explain" how and why they are wrong, you will never get again these kind of confessions.

I think "regret having kids" is too strong here. But having doubts about it, or sometimes whishing/missing their pre-child life is very common.

For men is even worse, because they usually get the "luxury" of being almost childless having children. They put the childcare on the mother, and focus on the job, so having kids for them is like having an expensive hobby.

bowsamic5• 2 years ago

There are many convincing arguments for kids but deathbed regrets are not one of them. First, who cares about what I will regret at the end? It’s the end. Second, I don’t trust the perspectives of people in the extreme situation of “just about to die”. They invariably have romanticised views about life, because they’re about to lose it. They’re not at all thinking of the huge stresses of children

esafak2• 2 years ago

Regret does not set in just as you are about to die.

card_zero12• 2 years ago

Kids are a hobby, given disproportionate importance by the mind-controlling evolved urges the article mentions.

OK, I admit I'm being deliberately offensive here in a tit-for-tat manner, you may have a point. I'll note though that feeling content, or happy, has never made much sense to me as a goal, since it's vacuous: the argument "you should do this because it will make you feel good" doesn't really address the "should" part, the moral dimension.

Many bad things will make you feel good, potentially for the rest of your life (this works out quicker if the thing kills you), and moral purpose seems to be sometimes clouded and twisted into disingenuous statements by for instance drug addiction, where the person is just trying to justify the compelling call of dopamine, or by parenthood.

otherme1232• 2 years ago

So now we are all the same, I guess. If your aunt regreted it, everyone would regret it.

If you are in your 20's or 30's in doubt of having kids or not, and always finding a reason to not have them, you will probably regret skipoing. But if you, like me, know for a fact that you don't want kids and you never felt any kind of desire to have them, you will probably not regret it.

I'm the only one in my job over 40 that doesn't have kids. And both the quote from the article "By the same token, why does nobody ever say that having kids was a mistake?" or yours "Everyone I know with kids in their 40s and 50s is content." are false. If you poke hard enough, moms fall apart and recognize that sometimes they find themselves wishing to get rid of their kids and fantasizing about a childless life. But they don't like to talk about it because that would make them bad mothers. I reassure them that it's a normal feeling if you are going through hard times with them.

But they are not specially happy with having kids (and I'm sure there are precious times with them), nor I'm sad or regretful for not having them.

phmqk762• 2 years ago

A certain small percentage of any population is comprised of outliers. It’s kind of the definition of outlier…

anonzzzies9• 2 years ago

Your local group of ‘friends’ apparently; I have different experiences. And my friends with kids (who are 50+ now) mostly regret it for the time lost. Anecdotal is anecdotal.

laborcontract4• 2 years ago

As deathbed regrets go, 'working more' and ‘having kids’ aren’t two I hear a lot of.

anonzzzies9• 2 years ago

If you aren’t mentally deranged

And this sentence says more about your (probably religious) background than about people who choose to not have kids.

system16• 2 years ago

And if it’s not kids it’ll be something else. My mom passed away a few years ago and she commented how she regretted spending so much time doing “outdoorsy” stuff with my stepdad, and wish she’d had spent more time shopping. When you know it’s the end and your options are gone, you’ll always lament what could have been.

chowells2• 2 years ago

You username suggests you find value only in monetary gain, so it's no shock your other ideas are equally bad.

aapoalas• 2 years ago

A philosopher friend of mine pointed this exact thing: After having children he stopped pondering about the big existential questions.

Paraphrasing his words: "You neither have the time nor the need to think of the meaning of it all: Children give meaning to everything ."

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

It just always seemed like a curse to me to only be able to ponder such a very very short small & local set of considerations. I think it's amazing that our species can take such grander views. Having children seems to truncate that perspective enormously.

Still want kids, still excited for this future. But man, I think most kids would have much better lives & grow up to be better more interesting people if the parents & adults didn't have to make such enormous sacrifices, if there was some spare capacity left over. And I think capitalism & the world we live in today is especially draining & enmiserating in this way.

golol• 2 years ago

And I think capitalism & the world we live in today is especially draining & enmiserating in this way.

When was it bețter exactly?

ssnri2• 2 years ago

Unpopular opinion: parents get tax breaks, extra paid time off, and plenty of social leeway for blocking sidewalks with strollers / crying babies on planes, etc.

Please don’t ask for more. We who don’t have kids have our own problems.

As George Carlin put it: “speaking as a mother, …”

card_zero12• 2 years ago

This disgusts me, because I want to think about meaning, and the statement strikes me as a hand-wavy excuse for distracting oneself, as well as an attack on my values. But then, the point raised by the article is that distraction is somewhat similar to meaningful purpose, and the line is a fine one because we adapt to new problem situations. Watching myself go through such adaptation is always somewhat creepy, and the moments of choice before embarking on a momentous project are difficult, not merely for reasons of cost/benefit analysis but because "cost" and "benefit" are liable to redefined by embarking, which is just confusing. Charlie Kaufman wrote a film called "Adaptation" which I thought was about this maybe.

rich_sasha• 2 years ago

I think being too tired is just a small part of it. A much bigger one is that children give you an enormous sense of mission: to protect them, educate them, shape them. To foster the world around you so that when they grow up, it's not as messed up as it could otherwise be. To be a better person all round, so you can be a better parent to them. You learn things so you can teach them, you learn things from them, you pick up hobbies together to learn alongside.

Whether it's all worth the effort is a separate question, but oh boy it's a boost to existential anxiety for sure.

vundercind3• 2 years ago

The thinking-about-meaning is a distraction, too. A rather poor one, I increasingly believe, as I stare down the back side of middle age. That I’d end up flirting with that attitude would have really surprised me at age 20. Or 30, for that matter.

It’s all distractions. Pick a good distraction.

senectus1• 2 years ago

i think his wording is poorly phrased.

I think that having children put things in a different perspective/context. which makes your analysis of existence quite different.

I know that the day I held my son I felt something click/change in my mind. I can't really describe what changed, just that my priorities changed.

I still cant really aptly describe what changed... and it's been nearly 16 years to the day that he was born. (and I've also had a daughter (13) as well)

oh also, having children is a form of immortality. I know that my impact on the world will carry on, and I'm pretty pleased with the form that it takes.

snapplebobapple• 2 years ago

i was you in my twenties, by my late 30s i figured out there is no meaning and you have to make your own meaning. Kids are the easy button for making meaning.

thiht• 2 years ago

"Do you want to think about the meaning of life, or double it and pass it to the next person?"

RestlessMind3• 2 years ago

After having children, it finally clicked to me that the purpose of life is simple - survival of your genes.

It is the only purpose I have thought of so far which makes sense logically - organisms who care about the survival of their genes are more likely to have their genes survive. Organisms who do not care about that are less likely to do so.

sershe• 2 years ago

I am yet to find a reason for having children that is neither based on a past, now non-existent economic concern, nor could be retorted to with "so would getting yourself addicted to drugs". This article is of the latter variety.

Why WOULD I want to sign up for either an endless bunch of chores, OR a bogus chemical change in my brain - let alone both - to make me stop pondering the meaning of life?

Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-natalist and I support people having kids. Heck I'd pay for people to have more kids! I just want people to stop getting self-important about it. Purely by the numbers of the people who have accomplished child-rearing, it's one of the least special jobs in the world; maybe the least special of all - almost anyone can do it. There's more (real, not drug-like) meaning in agriculture or trash pickup.

stnmtn• 2 years ago

Why do you believe there's more meaning in trash pickup? If the argument is that it provides more utility to people in a community, surely raising a child into a responsible, productive member of society is way more utility?

000ooo000• 2 years ago

This felt very relevant to me, i.e. the perspectives on existential anxiety and relationship with work. Our first is a week 'overdue' today and as someone who deliberated for years over whether having a child was 'right', I have no regret and I can't wait. The parts about purpose, difficulty in regretting certainly feel true. But all that may be the monkey brain chemicals racing around so hopefully this comment doesn't age poorly.

canistel• 2 years ago

The caption below the cartoon got me thinking...

Intense craving for sugar, is a harmless and potentially beneficial adaptation for a human hunter-gatherer. This however, can be quite harmful for a city-dweller, and forces him to incessantly keep a watch over his impulses and frequently keep applying breaks.

Is there an accepted or popular term for such adaptations which eventually turned into maladaptations as we civilised ourselves?

card_zero12• 2 years ago

Yes, these maladaptations are called "maladaptations". :)

riverdweller• 2 years ago

It’s not elegant, but the term is evolutionary mismatch.

whyage• 2 years ago

Good approach, but it's time-bound. How do you find meaning after your kids leave the nest?

irrational• 2 years ago

I don't have any experience in this area, but maybe grandchildren?

wouldbecouldbe3• 2 years ago

As long as you find meaning from conditional existence, it will disappear.

That’s why religions appeared, to have timeless meaning, and values. But we threw them out as superstitious, not understanding their purpose

ssnri2• 2 years ago

Perfect solution: have 10 kids and go to church every day.

Or get a hobby. Up to you

anonzzzies9• 2 years ago

But they way you say it sounds like they were invented with a purpose, which means you can replace them with another purpose; apparently short term thinking is worth writing articles about. So kids is one for a bit of your life; you can, like some guys (unfair but guys can) I know, just go to a new 20something girl every 15 years to make a new nest. Or you can find a purpose for your life, be it writing software, books, music, studying math, physics etc which your life ends up too short for and which will engulf you for however long it maybe with always having too little time while needing almost no money or other external stimuli. Wouldn’t that be better. Indeed it is.

vundercind3• 2 years ago

Fill the 5x increase in your free time with all the books, movies, and video games you missed in the prior 20ish years?

55555• 2 years ago

I (childless) thought this article was fantastic and convincing and then at the end the author reveals that she doesn’t have kids and then interviews a few of her friends who are parents and they are way less romantic about the whole thing.

Certainly some of the hesitation people have about having children simply comes from the many parents who don’t make it sound great.

I honestly think it’d be great to have a study that interviews parents but segments them by income. So we can see how much of the struggle is actually caused by not being able to pay for daycare or a maid etc.

blast• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmq0udSUuxc

penguin_booze• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n32YMFjMZFc

tiahura• 2 years ago

I get that people can debate the existential satisfaction of having kids, however what doesn’t seem debatable is the “next level” personal development that occurs by having kids. The first six months of parenthood broadens perspectives and instills more wisdom than 60 years of having pets, or volunteering at X, or traveling, or any other activity offered as an alternative.

anonzzzies9• 2 years ago

or any other activity offered as an alternative.

… in your opinion as a wiser person I guess. Most parents I know are considerable less ‘wise’ than the not parents: the latter group had ~20 years more of travel, diverse life, study etc. Most early parents, 6-8 years into their first (with maybe a 2nd or more there) sound lobotomised when I get to speak with them. It gets better later on, but wisdom, I think not.

holri2• 2 years ago

I doubt that having children answers the big existential questions anymore, if the planet is probably going on fire during the lifetime of the next generation.

bowsamic5• 2 years ago

That’s a good point and is a reason why I think it’s no longer true. Is the suggestion that when I have children I will not worry about their fate? I’m existentially worried about my own fate due to climate change (will economy explode in 20 or 40 years?)

This, along with the stress of no family support and wife working, is the main pressure to not have kids for me

doublepg23• 2 years ago

What would've happened to humanity if we had that same outlook during every hardship that faced them?

chowells2• 2 years ago

Why is humanity important?

holri2• 2 years ago

One of the hardship nowadays is that there are too many people. Therefore having children contributes to extinction of humanity.

carrolldunham• 2 years ago

Of course the removal of the curse of existential freedom is the reason for having children. Whether people consciously reason it out or not, it's agony wondering whether every decision is part of 'the right thing', and pure relief when a constraint descends of there being only one thing to do, which is imperative. 'You have to' frees you from the indulgent loneliness of 'You wanted to'. But neither the article or anyone here has stopped to consider whether it's ethical or defensible to bring beings into the world, to suffer, for the sake of easing your confusion and boredom. To me, it's not. Taking on a responsibility is one thing. Creating the problem that you then take responsibility for (your child's need of care), is neutral at best and, arguably, crooked.

dustincoates2• 2 years ago

American parents really get up in arms about this stuff, which is something I’ve learned firsthand over the past few years. (I’ve also learned to recognize when they don’t want to hear my counterargument.) But the fact of the matter is, babies throughout history have slept—and in many places today, still sleep—in the same “bed” as their parents. Various positions of sleeping (back, side, stomach) are also common across cultures and time.

At the risk of being one of those parents who don't want to hear a counterargument…

Sure, this is all true, but the author's argument is unsatisfying. We've done lots of things throughout history that have since been proven unsafe. Putting babies on their back to sleep is correlated with a 50% reduction in SIDS deaths. I don't think you can handwave that away with "we used to do it differently" or "non-American cultures do it differently."

wouldbecouldbe3• 2 years ago

Sid deaths are 1 in 10.000; there is some indication that not sleeping on the stomach make it 1 to 20.000. But the numbers are too low, and classifying and reporting true causes is hard

laborcontract4• 2 years ago

So much to unpack here but as a parent that just got my kid over the worried about sids stage, it’s easily the most overrated worry once you unpack things and figure out what’s generally going on.

Most important piece of the discussion is that most parents conflate suffocation with SIDS. They are totally different things.

Suffocation risks can be mitigated. Avoid sleeping with little ones on the couch, don’t put too many blankets in a crib, etc etc.

Actual SIDS is a real thing, and it’s not certain that SIDS risks can actually be mitigated. Theres a genetic factor, birth related factors, and smoking factors.

The SIDS survey is wholly unsatisfying because it doesn’t control for stuff like loose blankets in cribs.

dustincoates2• 2 years ago

So my critique here isn't whether back sleeping is necessary or co-sleeping should be avoided. I have my own thoughts on those, but I'm also aware that you have to balance risks.

My critique is that the appeal to tradition and the appeal to, I don't know what to call it, "not American" by someone who isn't trained in this area is not the right approach for making that calculation.

Sleepthrowaway• 2 years ago

We co-sleep with the babies/kids, so caveats apply.

If you do a deeper dive into the research literature, the finding ends up being that it's fine to co-sleep if you are completely sober. No nyquil, no pot, no booze, no caffeine, no nicotine, nothing. If you put those in you and then the baby in the bed, then you start getting injuries and deaths.

So, obviously, the recommendation then has to be that you do not co-sleep. Because people are real dumb, and even more so when you've only had 4 hours of sleep in the last month. I've had other parents tell me that pot isn't a drug (its a medicine!) and really mean it. That since a MD prescribed them ambien, they can take it while breastfeeding and co-sleeping. The kids of those people are the ones the 'no co-sleeping' recommendation is meant for.

If you're totally 100% sober, it's fine for mom and baby to co-sleep.

senordevnyc• 2 years ago

For me it just comes down to it not being remotely worth the risk. I'm a father and I did half the midnight feedings and diaper changes (plus all of them when mother was traveling for work), and cosleeping would have definitely been more convenient. And maybe what you're saying is true, but if wrong (or just something else goes wrong), it's an unthinkable tragedy that would cost me my child. And that's a tragedy that many parents (and marriages) don't come back from.

I'll just be a little more tired and inconvenienced for a year, it's OK.

anonzzzies9• 2 years ago

It’s indeed such an (seemingly) easy fix ; marriage not good; get kids, bored with life; kids, seeking meaning: kids. I had friends and family do it for some or all of these reasons and indeed, at the start it helped somewhat; there was pink cloud. In the end it didn’t help and there was no meaning; divorce, depression (including suicide as there indeed was no meaning it turned out) and boredom moved back in after the kids left the house. There is no meaning, the universe doesn’t care; kids is the same as whatever else you can occupy yourself with that makes yourself feel worthy, making babies is just easier for most and it’s a ‘together activity’ that takes 25-30% of your life.

switchbak• 2 years ago

I think this might be the most cynical thing I’ve read on the Internet. Congrats.

MilStdJunkie• 2 years ago

Speaking as someone who's from a tight clique of former children of loveless homes, there's a truth I'd like to tattoo on the forehead of every baby-crazed[1] young couple:

No One Asks To Be Born.

It's on you. It's all on you. You're making the bet: half your life in exchange for throwing your genetics into the future. There's no waiting room of cherubs waiting at the vag-shaped gate for a turn on the old jumping dirt, no Sky Dad giving you gold stars for every set of fresh genitals vomited forth onto the world. But if you just end up making 60+ more years of misery for another lifeform, what in the living hell are you thinking?

Ok, alright, this is now the official "Bleak Subthread". Happy Subthreads, please continue on aisles 3 through 62.

[1] Or think they're baby crazed. Social expectations + hormones are powerful medicine. The problem is that - in America, anyway - the "social" part of that equation is fucked, nine ways to Sunday, and if you buy in without doing brain stuff, you'll be fucked, too.

RestlessMind3• 2 years ago

There is no meaning, the universe doesn’t care;

I just commented this elsewhere on this page - the only purpose of life is survival of one's genes. Those who care about that will have a higher likelihood of their genes surviving. Those who do not care (like you?) will have a lower likelihood. Rules of nature are pretty simple and amazing.

metalrain• 2 years ago

When I was younger I used to think I need to have children in order to understand parents and belong socially when almost everyone else has had children.

I think there is some truth to that, parents don't become non-parents even after their children are adults, but I think not having the same parenthood experience can be also a good thing. People don't just befriend people who are exactly like them.

causasui• 2 years ago

People will say they've had children to quell existential dread _and_ also claim having children is an unselfish act all in the same breath.

phmqk762• 2 years ago

So?

The Existential Relief of Having Children

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